


Ears to See; Eyes to Hear

by GhoulsnHalos (Morgawse)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Painter Dean Winchester, Poet Castiel (Supernatural), Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:22:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26502067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgawse/pseuds/GhoulsnHalos
Summary: Poet Castiel Milton admires Dean Winchester's art. When he walks by the artist's open door one evening he is struck by how the artist's good looks outshine his art. However, Dean has an inherent dislike of poets, especially those Romantic types. He doesn't work with male models either. Thinking it will get rid of Castiel, Dean tells him to get his patron (Countess Bradbury) to commission the sitting. Dean is convinced that his patron will turn Castiel down.What happens when two weeks later Castiel turns up with a commission from the countess and an instruction for Dean to listen to Castiel's poetry first?Come on, it's a smut fit. We all know what happens next, right?
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Ears to See; Eyes to Hear

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Writers of Destiel "The Day They First Met" Prompt Week - Thirsty Thursday.
> 
> This one-shot has been through spelling and grammar checks, including arguments with Grammarly, but in case any mistakes or typos squeaked through, I apologize.

Dean lights another candle. All the natural light in the room has gone with the setting sun. During the day he leaves the door open a crack to allow what little light there is in the corridor outside to help brighten his room. But as the evening creeps in, so do the other residents of the tenement building. With them comes too much noise for Dean to concentrate. The door never keeps everything out, but it provides some protection from the noise. As soon as he has enough light from candles and his two oil lamps, he will close the door.

“I could pose for you.”

The voice is deep, a rumble to it like a rising storm.

“I don’t think so,” Dean replies, hastily finding a sheet to cover the abomination he is in the middle of painting.

“I believe it would be…an honour…to pose for such an artist as yourself,” the man continues.

Dean scans the canvases that litter his lodgings. Each one a disaster in its own way. Somehow no matter how inspirational the original idea, or how beautiful the model, his art always turns on him. He is grateful that some buyers didn’t seem to mind. He has sold enough through his connection with Countess Bradbury to keep him alive.

Sighing, Dean goes to close the door in the stranger’s face. He can be rude. It’s not like he has a reputation to uphold among the other residents of New York. But he doesn’t slam the door shut. He can’t, not when he finally looks at the stranger. The man’s shirt is undone most of the way down his chest, the once-white neckerchief stained and brown, a bottle of something held loosely between the first two fingers of his left hand. His hair is unkempt. It looks as if he made an attempt to tie the black wavy locks back in the manner stylish two or three years before. But as many strands are falling out of the black bow as are contained within. He wears what Dean has heard called stirrup pants looping over his shoes, in imitation of the Cossack style.

“I believe that spending the day in the opium den or the grogshop has clouded your judgement, sir. My work is modest, workaday at best. Besides, I have no use for a male model.”

Dean is unprepared for the man to step up close enough that he could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Excuse my forwardness, but I beg to differ. The evidence is clear. You have a great talent for art. What you lack is the correct muse to bring that spark of talent to light.”

“I suppose,” Dean mutters over his shoulder as he walks away from the door, resigned to not getting rid of the man quite yet, “that you are the muse I require?”

The cheek of it! The man sits at Dean’s table, in Dean’s chair, and kicks his feet up onto the table. He takes a swig from the bottle, grimacing as whatever is in there slides down his throat.

“Perhaps. Perhaps it is not I that is your muse, but more that my poetry that will ignite the flames.”

A poet! How dreadful. That explains a great deal about the man’s appearance. Perhaps he’s imitating the style of those British poets like Byron and Keats. Dean detests all that romantic, emotional nonsense.

“Look, Mr?”

“Ah, yes, forgive my manners. Milton. Castiel Milton.”

Dean refrains from rolling his eyes. A poet called Milton. A ridiculous choice of nom de plume if ever he heard one. He cannot envisage the man before him writing anything to equal the great Milton’s Paradise Lost. If this is the level to which the scoundrel will stoop to make a name for himself, then Dean Winchester will have no part in it.

“Very well, Mr Milton. Please speak with my patron, Countess Bradbury.”

Dean knows Charlie will kick the buffoon out on his ass as soon as look at him. She has no time for phonies. She will no more commission a piece of work from this man’s words than she would consider taking him to her bed. The émigré countess’s salons may be the talk of New York but, her personal life remains shrouded in mystery to all but a few who know of predilection for the fairer sex.

Dean strides over to the door. He inclines slightly at the waist, sweeping a hand through the opening. “Until such time as you have secured the Countess’s approval, I bid you goodnight Mr Milton.”

Dean thinks that this is the last he will see of Castiel Milton.

*************************

Two weeks later, Dean is woken by thunderous banging on his door. Last night’s bottle is lying empty on its side by his cot. He takes a minute to register if the pounding is coming from the door, or if it is merely the drums playing in his head. Blearily, he rubs at his eyes. They won’t open fully, there’s still too much sleep gluing them together.

Dean stumbles towards the door, now convinced that yes, it is someone knocking on his lodging’s door that woke him. It is only when he passes the second of the two canvases that he had been working on the previous day that the bottom falls out of his stomach.

He knew he should never have trusted that hornswoggling no-account Scottish devil. Never have allowed Crowley to convince him to forge these masterpieces from the Talbot collection. Now he has the constables at his door, and…Dean covers both of the paintings, removing them from their easels and stashing them behind two original pieces of work.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” he shouts, knowing it sounds like a guilty man panicking to hide the evidence.

The next thing Dean realises is that he needs to make himself decent. He had at least had the foresight to remove his pants the previous night before falling face-first onto the cot in a drunken stupor. This morning, however, if he’s going to be arrested, he’d rather it is with his pants on.

He finds one of his two pairs and drags them on, not bothering to tuck his shirt in or find a pair of stockings.

“Hello, Dean.”

“For the love of all that is holy! Who are you?” The man on the other side of the door is, thankfully, not a constable. His face is vaguely familiar. Hell, Dean wouldn’t forget a face like that. However, he can’t place when or where he’s seen the man. Dean is certain the man isn’t a streetwalker from the Hudson docks, nor a prostitute from one of the Bowery’s gin palaces. Then why is he addressing him as Dean, not Mr Winchester?

“Castiel Milton, poet and bon viveur. We met a few weeks back when I passed on my way from visiting a sick friend. Unfortunately, she has fallen on hard times and been forced to take up residency in this building. Countess Bradbury was gracious enough to hear my request for a commission of one of your paintings. She wishes it to be inspired by my poetry.” Milton waved an envelope bearing Charlie’s seal and a bound leather notebook in Dean’s face.

Dean snatches the envelope. Sure enough, it is a note from Charlie telling him that she is willing to pay him ABOVE his usual rate for a work created after hearing some of Mr Milton’s unusual work. Charlie has underlined ‘unusual’. She has also asked that Dean make it a matter of priority. It’s better than being imprisoned for forging artwork for Crowley. The sum will keep him going for a while. Dean ushers Milton in before one of the neighbours starts complaining about the racket.

“Make yourself comfortable while I make coffee and gather my sketchbook.”

“As you wish, Dean.”

When Dean turns his attention back to Castiel, his mouth dries up. He tries to swallow, but there is no saliva left. In the few minutes Dean has been absorbed in preparing his necessary morning coffee and collecting his charcoals and sketchbook, Castiel has stripped. Not his jacket, but all his clothes. The poet is stretched out on Dean’s cot as naked as the day he was born. The notebook is open in front of him.

His brain is still befuddled from last night’s session with the whisky otherwise, Dean would have worked out how the poet’s work was unusual. Instead, he stands gawping at the acres of pale flesh, remarkably unmarked for an unmoneyed man of their age. The light dusting of dark hair on his chest. Unconsciously licking his lips, Dean’s eyes travel down the body. Perhaps, Milton has more means than Dean has assumed because while he is lean and it is easy enough to see the outline of his ribs, they are not poking through his skin as Dean’s do. It would make sense, few people that live in the tenements around Dean can afford the fashionable pants Castiel was wearing. Dean tilts his head to one side. His tongue pokes out the side of his mouth as he tries to make out what the words on Castiel’s side are.

“My tattoo? It’s for protection. The words are an ancient religious language; one I learned from travels through Europe and the Holy Land. Nothing holy or demonic can find me. My demons, I assure you, are all of my own making.”

Dean nods dumbly. He’s too entranced by what he sees to take any notice of what Castiel is saying. He takes a mouthful of too-hot coffee. It breaks the spell, bringing Dean back to reality with an unpalatable bump.

“My patron, the Countess, says that your poetry is…unusual…that I should hear some and come up with ideas for a painting. I suppose that…” Dean struggles to keep his eyes from straying any further over Castiel’s body. “That is…would you read me some.”

On hearing Dean, Castiel’s expression changes from feigned indifference to excited delight. He picks up the book, rearranging himself so that he is propped up on one elbow, one leg straight along the bed, the other bent at the knee and crossed over the straight one, his foot resting on the edge of the cot.

What Dean hears would make the Marquis de Sade blush. Dean’s no shy virgin and when he’s honest with himself prefers the rough and tumble of sex with a man. But this is beyond the likes of anything he’s heard before.

Dean makes sure to put the table between himself and Castiel. Neither is paying the other for sex. They don’t know each other. It is safer this way, Dean tells himself, to put a barrier between them. He fusses with his sketchbook and charcoals for a couple of minutes before he dares look over at Castiel again.

Castiel stares back into Dean’s eyes. A moment later he breaks the gaze with a wink and, what Dean can only describe as, a smirk.

The response Castiel provokes in Dean makes him glad he had the presence of mind to hide behind the table. The normally freezing room suddenly feels too warm.

Dean is determined to capture Castiel’s sensuality on paper before he loses the koala. "Just hold that," he says absently, his fingers already moving, creating shapes on the paper, in a futile attempt to recreate the energy radiating off Castiel. Dean gets lost in it like he used to do, his whole being centered on his hands. Time passes in a different way when he’s caught up in the flow of creation.

It is only because he’s almost committed what Castiel looks like to memory that he notices the tiniest movement. It would have been imperceptible to most people. Not Dean. Not today.

“Let’s take a quick break. You can move, stretch your limbs out for a while.”

Dean hurries over to the small jug of water he keeps by the window and splashes some over his face.

When he gets back, Castiel is leafing through the pages of his sketchbook. Dean takes a moment to admire the curve of his spine and the swell of his buttocks.

Castiel must hear him return. He turns to face Dean with reverence stamped across his features.

It is only that look which stops Dean from protesting the invasion of his privacy.

"This is… you…you made these…of me?" Castiel's voice is hushed.

Dean can only utter one word, "yes."

"You have a gift," Castiel says. “I knew that, of course. It is why I approached you in the first place. But…” Castiel pauses, “I had not expected this.”

Castiel turns back several pages, then goes forward through them again. "The way you make me look..."

"I don't…" Dean stammers. He is unprepared for the man who comes across as a mindless popinjay to speak with such sincerity. “I can’t MAKE you look anything.” He shrugs, adding, “It’s simply the way you look.”

Something shifts in Castiel's expression. The playfulness is gone, replaced with something dark and warm. He stands up, eye to eye with Dean and leans in, kissing him.

It's not the first time one of Dean's models has kissed him. It is the first time a man has kissed him. Or, more accurately, the first time Dean has allowed a man to kiss him. Encounters with one of the city’s Nancy boys come with the rule that it is strictly sex, no intimacy. Kissing is intimate. Far too intimate to share with a streetwalker. Despite himself and his rules of engagement, Dean kisses back, deep and searching, trying to find with his mouth what he couldn't quite capture with his hands.

They knock Dean’s mug off the table. It shatters spilling cold coffee over their feet, but Dean takes no notice. Dean sidles closer, easing his arms around Castiel, picking over broken china as he ushers him back to the cot. Dean lurches when the backs of his knees hit the frame and they tumble together onto the straw mattress. Castiel wraps his arms and legs around Dean, all that warm skin Dean needs to map with his hands. He leaves streaks of charcoal on Castiel's pale skin and palms them away, traces down Castiel's arms with his tongue.

The lewd poet is a mystery to him. Dean has no idea why he's so insistent to be painted, why he's in Dean's arms right now, or how he knew Dean’s shameful secret. He doesn’t question it. He rolls them onto their sides, sliding his hand down Castiel's chest, over his belly, down between his legs to where his cock is hard and straining. "You're exquisite. Every hard plane, every angle, every line of muscle, every shadow. It’s…it’s perfection. I would paint you like this," Dean murmurs, unthinking.

Castiel is already scrabbling at the buttons of Dean’s pants, slim fingers slipping inside.

"You should," Castiel says, "That was the intention. Not simply mine, but Countess Bradbury’s too."

If his body wasn’t already flush with desire, Dean would blush at the notion that Charlie sent him this handsome man to paint, for Dean’s pleasure - not, of course, her own. Dean can see the painting in his mind already, captured in brushstrokes and colors. Somehow, he has to find the boldness to paint it. But first, he captures Castiel's mouth again, gasping into their joined lips as Castiel's hand circled his cock, stroking him with ease and skill.

"Oh dear god," Dean mutters, his hips pushing up into every stroke of Castiel's hand. He struggles to make his own limbs work, tightening his fingers around Castiel's cock, moving them faster, faster. He grins into their kiss when Castiel starts to moan and whine.

It doesn't last, it couldn't. Dean's already keening. He cants his hips into Castiel's hand. The sensations swirling in his body and the myriad of muddled thoughts in his brain threatening to make him fall apart completely.

"Yes," Castiel mutters, pulling back, his eyes locked to Dean's, "Yes," he says, "come for me, Dean."

With that, Dean is undone. He falls apart at Castiel's command, shaking and coming, shooting all over Castiel's hand. When he blinks his eyes open, Castiel's head is cocked to one side, his left eyebrow quirked provocatively as he raises his hand and licks his fingers clean. Dean shivers, certain if he had any energy left the sight would have him coming again.

He takes a few deep breaths. Castiel still hard beneath his fingers, and Dean is desperate to taste him. He slides down the chaise, bracing his hands at Castiel's hips and lower his mouth over Castiel's straining cock.

"Oh Lord," Castiel mutters, as Dean’s mouth envelops his cock. "Fuck." He swears like a sailor as Dean quickens his pace.

Dean relishes the taste of Castiel’s salty musk and tolerates the bitter tang that follows after, which he can’t identify. He is determined to take Castiel apart the way he did Dean. With every trick he has learned, Dean works his way over and under Castiel’s cock. He gently sucks each one of Castiel’s balls into his mouth before working his way back over Castiel’s shaft again.

Castiel keens. He bucks up into Dean’s mouth.

Dean's hands slide on now-slick skin, gripping Castiel's hips as he swallows around Castiel, feeling him pulse between his lips.

"Shit…shit…shit," Castiel takes back some of the control, thrusting right to the back of Dean’s throat.

Dean gags and his eyes water at the intrusion. He doesn't stop. He relaxes the muscles in his throat, taking Castiel’s full length into his mouth. Dean quickens his movements until Castiel is squirming and finally coming hot over Dean's tongue. He swallows it down and pulls off, licking his lips.

Castiel looks down at him, gasping to catch his breath, his pupils blown from lust. "That was…" he trails off.

"Somehow inevitable," Dean says because it certainly felt that way.

Castiel beams at him all gums and twinkling azure eyes. "Indeed. I am sure your patron would be most disappointed if it hadn’t happened this way. I know I would have been.”

Dean struggles with feeling at once satiated and deceived. "You were seducing me, then? From the moment we met?" He strokes a lazy hand up Castiel's side.

"Of course, Dean" Castiel admits, catching Dean's hand and raising it to his mouth to drop a kiss on his fingertips. "Although when I fell for your art after seeing the painting of my lady-friend, I didn't realize the artist was just as captivating. I suppose I should have guessed. My friend would never let just anyone paint her.”

"My paintings are nothing to be captivated by," Dean counters. He ignores the off-hand admission about Castiel having a friend that Dean has previously painted. Even if the comment had registered with him, Dean has painted enough women not to remember all their names. 

"That's untrue," Castiel sits up a little, a challenge in his eyes. “Every line of charcoal, every brushstroke brings forth something from the bright soul that’s within you.”

Dean snorted. “If I do have a soul, I very much doubt it is bright, or pure, or any other whimsical thing you poetic types speak of.”

“Who convinced you of that? Whoever it was be damned to the very pits of hell! You, Dean Winchester, shine like a beacon in a raging storm. It is there in all your work…”

Dean dips his head, unable to accept the compliment. It is untrue.

Dean knows the truth about himself. He is one of many penniless New York artists struggling to put a roof over their head, or food on their table. He is better at copying other people's works than creating his own. That is why he dances with danger by doing working with Crowley.

“Do you really care so much what others think of you?” Castiel asks, shifting so that he’s stretched out on the cot, his arms above his head arching his back and tilting his head up. “Those that I have spoken with about you speak so highly of you. It was a wonder to me how you command such loyalty, Dean. But now, here in this place with you, I see it. I understand it. I wish you would see it for yourself.”

Castiel shifts, relaxing further into the pillows as if he’s said his piece and there is nothing that remains to be done to convince Dean of his worth.

Dean scans over the way the morning light filtering through the tiny window makes Castiel’s skin glow. “Stay. Stay like that, please,” he whispers.

He hurries back to where his sketchbook and charcoal lie abandoned on the table. He already knows the sweep of the stylus across the paper, where the shading will go, which parts of Castiel to highlight, how he can capture his raw masculinity, his powerful sexual energy, his softer creative side, and his razor-sharp insightfulness. Dean drags the chair across the room with him, sitting down with the sketchbook open on his knee. He flips to a blank page and starts throwing down lines in a frenzy, desperate to bring this image to paper. Dean begins with charcoal. Once he has had his fill of that medium, Dean finds his last prepared canvases and moves to paint. 

For two days Castiel doesn't leave.

Dean only stops drawing and painting to drink, eat and fuck.

When Castiel does finally leave, making his apologies but he has an appointment with a patron of his own, Dean’s lodgings stink of sweat, sex, and paint.

The works he created over those two days will need touching up here and there, but Dean is sure they will not turn on him. Dean is, however, painfully aware that few of these works will sell in polite society. Worse, to complete the commission for Countess Bradbury, he will have to use one of the less provocative sketches from before Castiel kissed him.

Dean doesn’t mind. Not really. He can’t remember the last time that his muse was so stirred. He hopes that his time with Castiel can spark a renewal in his more mundane works, find that spirit in his art that once compelled him to paint.

***************************

Dean returns from delivering the two canvases to Crowley. He is relieved to have them off his hands. No more. Dean promises himself that he will stick to the declaration he gave Crowley that he is no longer in the forgery business.

Opening his door, he sees that an envelope has been slipped under it while he was out. It bears Charlie’s seal. Kicking the door shut behind him, Dean opens the note.

“Mr Dean Winchester

Countess Charlene Bradbury requests your presence this Sunday evening, 8.00pm sharp at 3 Washington Square North, New York.

Full evening wear is not required for this small soiree...”

Dean scans the rest of the formal invitation. There is another sheet of paper tucked into the envelope, in Charlie’s handwriting. It is a gathering of six people, Dean and Charlie included. Dean knows the names of the dilatant Balthazar Roche and Charlie’s latest flame, Dorothy Baum. He is unfamiliar with Megan Masters. His jaw drops when he sees the last name on the list - Castiel Milton.

It appears his friend and patron is playing matchmaker. For once, Dean is quite prepared to let her.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun of PoetCas! being a Milton. If nothing else it made me giggle. Be thankful I didn't try to work out a Paradise Lost theme for the title as well. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed this NSFW piece of nonsense as much as I did writing it. If you did, please take a few seconds to hit the kudos button and comment on what you loved - or perhaps didn't love (constructive comments only, please).


End file.
